The eyesore next door: N.L. man fighting for action on derelict grocery store

Derelict and abandoned buildings are common throughout the province, as municipalities struggle with how to best deal with the eyesores. One in Musgrave Harbour, however, is causing increased headaches for a neighbour.

Newly elected Coun. Steve Butler says it's a safety risk and environmental hazard

Troy Turner · CBC News

· Posted: Sep 21, 2026 4:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

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A derelict building in the way means this man can't get his house insured

2 hours ago|

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3:07

Derelict and abandoned buildings are common throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, including a grocery store that has sat empty in Musgrave Harbour since 2009. It led Steve Butler down a years-long battle of headaches and a search for a solution, as the building is too much of a risk to insure his home. The CBC's Troy Turner reports.

It’s now part of his regular routine. Steve Butler scans his lawn and picks up shingles that have blown off the roof next door. 

He’s built a shed around his heat pump to protect it from flying debris. Sometimes it’s a sheet of metal siding, other times scraps of building material. 

Living about four metres away from a derelict, abandoned grocery store hasn’t been easy for the Musgrave Harbour, N.L., man.

“I’ve had damages done over the past. The eaves got torn off last winter in the storm because shingles blew off the porch there. The siding is blown off the back."

"Every time there's a bad storm, you don't know the minute the roof is going to come off.”

His neighbour is the once-thriving Foodex grocery store. It closed in 2009, and a year later Butler moved in next door. In the early days, he expected the business to sell and possibly open again. But that didn’t happen. Instead, it started a steady decline to dilapidation. 

Now, it’s practically unusable.

“If a little child goes inside, that place is wide open and, God forbid, goes through the floor, who’s going to be responsible at the end of the day?” Butler said. “I got no interest in that building at all, other than to get it cleaned up.”

To amplify the issue, given the state of the building, he says he cannot get house insurance. 

“I got insurance on the car and truck and my motorcycle … every time I renew my insurance at the end of the year, this comes up. ‘Well, why don't you get house insurance?’ I explain it to them. ‘Oh, well, that's a different situation.’"

For many years, Butler has been looking to municipal, provincial and federal governments for help, but he says nothing has worked. 

Early in September, he successfully ran in a byelection to become a member of Musgrave Harbour town council. 

“By being on there, I can push more with certain people … because every time that I have contacted somebody in government, the first thing they will ask is, ‘Well, are you with the town council or anyone?’”

Jason Chaulk has been mayor of Musgrave Harbour for the past five years. He and council have fielded many complaints about the state of the old Foodex. The mayor says the Business Development Bank of Canada owns the building and it’s the bank’s responsibility to clean it up.

“Come and accept ownership and clean it up and not to expect the town of Musgrave [Harbour] to live with it or have to clean it up,” he said. 

In a written statement, the BDC says the loan to the business ended in 2012  and the file was written off. The bank said it has not been involved with the property since the mortgage was discharged in 2012.

“As a result, we are not in a position to comment on the property's current status, ownership or maintenance responsibilities.”

For larger communities, removal of buildings may be possible, but the mayor says cleanup would run hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they just don’t have the means.

"I feel bad for the people that's living in the immediate area around there," he said.

"It would be a significant cost to the town of Musgrave Harbour — we would not be able to be in that financial situation to take care of that."

The problem of derelict and abandoned buildings goes far beyond Musgrave Harbour.

Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, a non-profit advocacy group, says many towns are struggling with how to best deal with these community eyesores.

Recent changes to the Municipalities Act allow communities to pass bylaws to give them more power in how to best deal with issues such as derelict buildings. 

However, those usually require a means of enforcement, says MNL president Amy Coady.

Even with staff to enforce, that doesn’t solve the issues of having enough in the town purse to cover the demolition work.

“The affordability to be able to do the cleanup ourselves, or take down buildings, can be very costly. We can apply a lien on the property and recoup those costs when the property or the building or the land gets sold, we would recoup it at that point. But again, there's no guarantees as to how much we would get back.”

Back in Musgrave Harbour, Butler peers into the old Foodex. It’s gone from a hangout for youth who broke in, to being stripped over all the copper wire, to now, a building where the stench of mould meets you at the entrance, and of which gaping holes expose the rot in the basement.

Butler has been putting up signs warning of danger, and pleas for people to stay away. He says he will continue to “rattle the cages” of provincial and federal governments to take action and force the owner of the building to clean up what he considers to be an environmental and safety risk.

“Something’s got to be done …  I don't know who and I don't care, but somebody's got to come out and assess the situation and figure out what they're going to do.”